This invention relates to scanning of documents and the recognition of alphanumeric symbols generally, and particularly to optical scanning and recognition of CMC7 type bar-coded characters using template matching.
The CMC7 character set, which was developed by the French Company Compagnie des Machines Bull, has received widespread use in financial transactions in many countries, primarily in Europe. Generally, the characters are recorded on documents such as bank drafts and checks in MICR (magnetic ink character record) form for scanning by magnetic scanner. Each character has a predetermined height and width and a predetermined pattern of bars and intervals of different opacities (e.g., seven bars and six intervals between the bars, four of the intervals having a short (narrow) width and two of the intervals having a long (wide) width).
A prior system and method for scanning and optically recognizing such characters are disclosed in patent application Ser. No. 07/696,987, filed Dec. 18, 1990, entitled "System and Method for Optical Recognition of Bar-Coded Characters", incorporated by reference herein. However, when the print quality of the bar code is poor, or the character pattern is corrupted by pen strokes or other noise, the optical character recognition method employed by this prior system (which provides for the segmentation and comparison of a character) sometimes does not adequately provide for character recognition.
What is needed and would be useful is a system which would provide for better recognition of such bar-coded characters when problems such as poor print quality, irregular bar spacing or other corruptions of the character's pattern are present.